Daniel Dale is an artist and publisher based in Bristol. In his recent work, Daniel has been exploring ideas of what makes us all happy, including past projects ‘A Field Guide to Happiness’, and ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’. This spring and summer of 2020, in and out of lockdown, he created ‘HAPPINESS’, an online project that explores individual happiness through a publicly sourced and growing photo collection; this work was supported by a bursary from GRAIN. Below, Christiane Monarchi asked Daniel more about the background and future for this project and what he is thinking about next.
__________
CM: When I got to know your work as part of this year’s UWE MA show ‘Quote Unquote’, your image of origami birds in the front dash of a car has stayed with me ever since. Reading about your interest in happiness actually did bring a smile to my face, which is welcome, when looking at a lot of photography online that maybe doesn’t elicit smiles. I was delighted to see you’ve taken this idea further with your recent GRAIN award, creating this new website whatishappiness.co.uk showcasing others’ images of happiness. Could I ask you how you came about the idea to open up your ‘happiness edit’ to the outside world?
DD: The work/research I did for my MA was always looking at happiness as an idea, or as something that exists in different ways within our society. It never felt like the photos should address my own happiness or other people’s as a concrete view. ‘A Field Guide to Happiness’, which the origami birds are from, felt more like a nudge to look for your own happiness in the everyday world, and not one that feels universal. The photos remained as open to interpretation as the idea of happiness is, and that idea of open interpretation made me want to incorporate audience participation. Originally, I was going to develop an interactive part to the project for my end of year exhibition. This would have included prints from the book as well as question prompts and a printer for visitors to print their own photos, inviting visitors to ‘hang’ the work themselves however they want. This involvement was where individual happiness would creep in, using my work as a jumping-off point for expression and ideas.
Since Covid-19 happened and university exhibitions across the country were halted I was considering if it could work online. The core idea behind using public participation was because I knew I couldn’t make work that tells people what happiness is, because only ‘you’ would know. And it was that idea of individual subjectivity that I was keen to facilitate. Plus, I knew there was a possibility I would end up with a mix of images that create this wholly bizarre and absurd archive, and that just sounded fun.
CM: What has the GRAIN award meant to you, in terms of making this work, and do you envision more to come from this project?
DD: GRAIN’s support for the work was incredible and I can’t thank them enough for the opportunity. I think the belief they showed, from awarding me the bursary to the talks we had about the work along the way, really helped me carry on with the work when at times I might have doubted it.
I really hope there’s more to come from the project! I’m keeping submissions open until the end of 2020 and the website is live until about October 2021 (If I don’t renew it). I am producing a publication to go alongside the work with all profits going to a chosen charity and the design will follow the randomising feature of the site by having several editions with different submissions throughout. On top of that, it would be great to have the opportunity to exhibit the work at some point, experimenting with how to bring the website to different venues and continue to interact with a further audience.
CM: It may not be a particularly happy time yet; your artistic sentiments are very welcome now – how has the continued lingering Covid-scape affected your working practice as an artist?
For most of this year, my practice has been affected quite badly. I think with this Covid-scape I put a lot of pressure on myself to make original and important work which incidentally bogged me down with a lot of extra self-doubts and anxiety. And although I was producing the ‘HAPPINESS.’ website, which has been an amazing project to work on, I basically just stopped making pictures and concentrated wholly on the website.
But now, I’ve finally started making work again which I’m stoked about and I’ve started printing my work at home which has reignited my love for hand-making artist books. Because of Covid, we are now living in a time where there is an even bigger dependence on the online world for socialising and sharing work. And I think that has made the idea of working in a physical dimension super fun and attractive, but also made me realise the importance of accessibility and the interaction that online work can yield. So Covid has started to really give back in a weird way opening up new and more ‘traditional’ ideas for presenting work, and I’m starting to see a much more positive affect and enjoyment toward my working practice. Which also feels a bit weird to say in the midst of such a horrible time in our lives.
CM: What a great sentiment to think about, that Covid times may have actually reinvigorated an interest in something offline and handmade as well as allowing online interaction. Will you introduce any narrative or other text to your images and publication that you are making now? Will the publication include your images and / or those submitted by others?
DD: The publication I’m making for the ‘HAPPINESS.’ website won’t have any text included, this is mainly to allow the images to sit as ambiguously as possible with the only anchor to the word ‘happiness’. In terms of introducing a narrative, I think there is a larger narrative to delve into within the work in regard to identity and how we see ourselves in the public eye. There are certainly discussions about what capitalism and social media have made us believe is an acceptable ‘happiness’ to show the world. Sadly, I haven’t begun unpacking where those discussions could lead and so maybe that’s something for another chapter.
It will be all submissions with a few ‘installation’ shots that I’ve collected on the way, which include some phone shots and a load of flyers that I put up around Bristol (they lasted about 24 hours). So every image will show, in some capacity, submissions taken directly from the website with no credit, so to keep the project anonymous. I think there are still a few photos I put up early on, so some of my photos might technically end up in there!
CM: I hope you keep the website open for a long time. It’s a welcome, collaborative project, and really addictive viewing. I dare anyone to try to stop at just one click.
DD: We’ll see what 2021 brings, I think I’d like to renew it and keep sporadically accepting submissions for as long as possible. Just keep collecting happiness.
__________
Daniel Dale is a photographer currently based in Bristol, UK. He holds an MA in Photography with the University of the West of England graduating in 2020. Along with photographing things he sees in between things he doesn’t, Dale also started up an independent publishing company, ‘Nonsense’, as a means to print his own artist books.
For further viewing:
